A treaty series is an officially published collection of treaties and other international agreements.
The League of Nations Treaty Series (LNTS) was a result of article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which stated:
Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any Member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered.
The League of Nations Treaty Series began publication in 1920, and was terminated in 1946, following the dissolution of the League of Nations. It contains 205 volumes with a total of 4834 treaties. A 9-volume index has been created.
Following the termination of that series, the registration of League of Nations treaties passed to the United Nations.
The United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) is the result of article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, which states as follows:
1. Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it.
2. No party to any such treaty or international agreement which has not been registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of the United Nations.
On December 14, 1946, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 97, which laid the rules for the registration of international agreements by the UN Secretariat.
The UNTS is by far the largest collection of treaties, running to some 2800 volumes containing 158,000 treaties from 1946. Its predecessor was the League of Nations Treaty Series (LNTS).
Treaties and international agreements were formally published in Statutes at Large (Stat.) until 1948. The Department of State also published a number of collections relating specifically to treaties and other agreements: